


Project REM

by Ace_of_spade



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Background Relationships, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag, M/M, Multi, My First Work in This Fandom, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slow Burn, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_of_spade/pseuds/Ace_of_spade
Summary: Dream and eleven others are kidnapped and thrown into a hyper-realistic simulation ran by an unknown group of people. They have to figure out how to survive and work together to get out within a year or face a grave consequence
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Clay | Dream & Sam | Awesamdude, Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu, Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 155





	1. Loading...

**Author's Note:**

> I impulsively started writing this at 2 with little sleep after not writing any sort of fic for a couple years so im a little rusty- Also this is my first work on here so any sort of tips for tagging/formatting/etc. would be much appreciated
> 
> Final thing- this first chapter is short bc its an intro, I promise the others are longer
> 
> Enjoy~

George took a seat in front of the microphone, scanning over the script Karl had handed him a few moments ago. He was really only half paying attention to what the words said. He was more focused on the annoying squeak his chair made every so often.

“They’re gonna wake up soon. Is everyone ready?” One of George’s coworkers, Bad, asked from the middle of the front row of desks. He was sat in front of a holographic screen showing twelve sets of vitals, names, and pictures of people attached to them.

“Loading the terrain now…” Another coworker, Eret, sat right behind Bad in the second row of desks. They typed away on a silver metallic keyboard and the large screen at the front of the room lit up. It showed twelve people passed out on the ground in a circle, grassy plains forming around them and spreading outward past the camera's view.

“The safety barrier is up. Ready to lower it whenever,” A pink-haired girl, Minx, took a long sip of her white claw. Her desk was right next to George’s and it was an utter mess of random junk, some of it spilling over onto his. He leaned forward again and pushed an empty can back to her side, his chair squeaking quietly.

"Are the peaceful mobs ready?” Bad looked up at the big screen, not a single creature in sight except for the twelve people, “Schlatt?” He looked back to the third row where the scruffy man was passed out at his desk, a stench of alcohol surrounding him, “Schlatt!” When the man didn’t even stir, Bad just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Minx, wake him up please.”

“Will do~” Minx took the empty can George had pushed back onto her desk and chucked it at the man seated in front of her. It hit him right on the back of his head with a nice ‘donk’, causing him to jump up and look around in confusion, “Haha yes!”

“You bitch- I was having a nice nap!” Schlatt picked up the can and was about to fling it back at Minx before Bad interrupted.

“Language! Sit down and do your job before I come over there and make you. We’ve been working on this for far too long for you to mess it up at the last second.”

Schlatt just grumbled to himself angrily, throwing the can back and taking a seat at his desk again. A couple of seconds later, a few farm animals appeared around the people in the circle, wandering aimlessly through the grassy meadow. Bad smiled happily and sat back down in his seat.

“Thank you… I think that’s all for now. George, you ready?”

George had been zoning out, pretending to read the long script as he swiveled from side to side in his chair. After a few moments of awkward silence, Karl elbowed him in the side harshly, “Dude, it’s time.”

“What? Oh sorry-” He quickly got his things together, giving the mic a couple of taps to make sure it was working before giving Bad the thumbs up, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Great! Waking up the subjects now…”


	2. Tutorial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the CC's real names this chapter because its supposed to be like real people going into the game. Next chapter and onward uses their gamertags though!

Clay was floating in a dark abyss of nothing. The only thing he could feel was the cold isolation of the void surrounding him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t speak. It was just him, his thoughts, and the pitch black. For most, it’d be a panic-inducing situation but recurring nightmares lose their scare after a while. The feeling of water filling his lungs as he drowns will come soon enough and he’ll wake up gasping for air in his bed with Patches curled up next to him.

Except that’s not what happened.

He was ripped out of the darkness as his eyes flew open, the bright light from overhead stung and he quickly covered them with his arm. He felt around for his blanket to cover his face only to feel nothing but… grass? He sat up in a panic and looked around. How the hell did he get in the middle of a field? That’s when he noticed the others around him, waking up much slower. He recognized his childhood friend, Nick, to his left and a close friend and coworker, Sam, on his right. Everyone else? He had no clue who they were.

“Ugh… mom turn off the lights…” Nick groaned quietly and rolled over onto his side.

“Dude, wake up. Now.” Clay whispered harshly, shaking his friend roughly.

“Wha- Clay? How’d you get in my room?” Nick yawned and slowly sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“We’re not in your room. Look around us,” Clay started shaking Sam awake. By now, some of the others had sat up and realized they weren’t where they were supposed to be. Two younger-looking boys had gotten up and were standing away from the group, talking to each other in hushed whispers. A smaller woman was shaking awake a taller male and talking to a man who looked like he could be her dad in a panicked tone. One guy with glasses was standing off to the side by himself, looking over everyone with suspicion. Out of the remaining three who were still getting up, there was another younger looking kid, a guy who looked like a college freshman, and another adult. Counting himself, there were twelve people here all of which seemed to have little to no correlation.

“Uh- Where are we?” Nick moved closer to Clay and Sam, looking at the others and their surroundings nervously.

“I have no clue but maybe someone else does… That guy in the glasses over there looks a little suspicious don’t you think? He’s the only one who doesn’t look freaked out, just… analytical.” Clay stared at the stranger for a moment before focusing on Sam again who was almost completely conscious by now.

“Yeah… How’d-” Nick stopped mid-sentence and a voice from behind him started speaking. Judging by everyone flinching and looking around, they could hear it too.

“Well good morning everyone. Glad to see you all alive and awake. As you can see, there are twelve of you here. I can assure you, that’s no coincidence and neither is why you all specifically, but we’ll get into that later… Some of you may recognize a few friendly faces, others are completely alone. Isn’t that fun?”

Clay wasn’t sure he liked this voice very much. Too cheery and too… emotionless at the same time. The British accent was a nice touch to this obvious dream though. It was rare he got variety in his nightmares nowadays.

“You lot were all selected to participate in this lovely top-secret project to further advance both the human race and our current technology. So in short… You all will be lab rats. Most definitely and honor if you ask me.”

Yeah, he really didn’t like this voice. Most people aren’t exactly fond of being forced to be lab rats for some random and probably illegal project and personally, neither was he. Taking a look around, it was obvious the others shared the same uneasiness. The shorter of the two boys off to the side moved closer to their taller friend and the third teen pulled at his hoodie strings with a panicked expression. The woman clung to her taller friend as he and the older man tried to calm her down. The loner had a stoic expression, looking like he was in deep thought. He caught Sam and Nick’s gazes but before a comforting word could be spoken, the voice was back on their ramble.

“Now onto the fun part! Avatar creation. All of you should see a screen pop up in front of you that has pictures of different character presets or if you wanted to go for a more custom look- There are multiple menus for clothing, skin tones, bodily features, and pretty much everything you could ask for in character creation. Scroll through and pick what you like. There should be a model of yourself next to the menu that will show you what the outfits will look like on your character. Make sure you like your appearance because this is the only time you’ll have unlimited access to these menus. Have fun creating, I’ll be back when all of you are done!” And just like that, the voice was gone.

Clay begrudgingly clicked through the different categories, swiping through the different screens. Everything about this felt too real to be a dream yet he wasn’t fully panicking. Not yet anyway. Just gotta wait for the reality of the situation to kick in. This was just a video game dream after all, right?

“Dude this is so trippy… What the hell is going on? I feel like I’m dreaming because no way can this be real but I’ve pinched myself like twenty times but I haven’t woken up yet,” Nick was definitely more into this character creation than Clay was, looking through all the screens with a bright look in his eyes. Probably distracting himself from the fact they’re trapped wherever this was for who knows how long. Can’t really blame him, Clay was in denial himself.

“Yeah… Do either of you remember how you got here? I remember walking home from work before I blacked out and suddenly Clay was shaking me awake,” Sam had chosen one of the presets, making minor changes to it to make it look a little more like himself.

“I was taking a nap at home and then I woke up here,” Nick was working on the clothes of his avatar now, scrolling through the endless screens of options.

“I… I don’t remember what I was doing. I think I was feeding Patches? Either that or helping my mom with something… I don’t know. It’s all really fuzzy,” Clay just picked one of the presets similar to Sam’s and changed a little here and there. He kept the green hoodie, black pants, and black combat boots and added some fingerless gloves and a random white smiley face mask he found. After minimal changes to the physical appearance, he was done and over with it. He has to give these kidnappers some credit though, the unimaginable wide variety of options was impressive.

“That’s weird… You don’t remember anything?” Sam looked over at him, finishing up his avatar creation not long after Clay.

“Not really…”

“That’s pretty sus… are you sure you’re not one of the people behind all this? You’re a pretty techy guy so I wouldn’t be surprised,” Nick took a bit longer to finish his, flipping back and forth between a panda hoodie or a white t-shirt with a small flame in the middle of the front. He ended up going with the flame shirt and a black, long-sleeved undershirt in the end.

“I code video games. Not simulation worlds with hyper-realistic environments and animals,” He motioned to the cow currently caught in a staring contest with Sam, “Besides, I wouldn’t put myself in my own experiment. That’s just some cliche overused trope they use in sci-fi movies and stuff.”

“Don’t you think we’re kinda living a sci-fi trope right now? Trapped in some sort of simulation or whatever with a bunch of strangers where a random voice tells us what to do,” Sam reached out to pet the cow, flinching when his hand hit a solid surface despite nothing being in the way, “And an invisible barrier around us.”

“I guess that’s true…” Clay reached out to touch the barrier, just as surprised as Sam when he hit a solid nothing, “I’m still not involved in any of this though. I can do coding but not something to this extent.”

“I see all your avatar changes are in and I gotta say, all lovely choices,” The voice was back, making him roll his eyes in annoyance, “I suppose I should explain to you all what it is you’ll be doing here, eh?”

“Oi, why did nothing change on our bodies? Wasn’t that the whole point of doing that avatar shit?” One of the teens yelled. He had a British accent as well but slightly different from the disembodied voice.

“Your changes are being processed now and they will be made after I finish my explanation.”

“If they need to be processed this slowly, that’s not very high tech. If this world didn’t look real, I’d assume you were running it on an old ass computer with dust all over it.”

“The sooner I can finish speaking, the sooner you’ll get your avatar changes now if you’d kindly be quiet and let me speak…” The voice had an edge to it, obviously annoyed. The teen went quiet, whispering to his friend next to him, “Thank you. Anyway, as I mentioned before, there is a specific reason why there are twelve of you here. You all will be here for a year, and every month one of you will receive a task you must complete before the end of the year while the rest will receive smaller tasks you must complete before the end of that month. You can hold off on the larger task, or as we call them Achievements, but that is not advised as some directly affect others later down the line. These Achievements will also greatly help all of you progress through this world. That is if you decide to work together…”

“What do you mean by that? Does only one person benefit from that ‘achievement’ or something?” The woman asked, messing with a blond streak in her hair nervously.

“All of the tasks you receive only benefit yourself unless you decide to share the rewards you get from the task. Achievements just have a bigger and more important profit. For example… if one of your first tasks is collecting a certain amount of food. Only specific people will receive that task and they have to complete it before the end of the month and only they will receive the rewards for completing it. They can choose to share and give some of those rewards away or keep them all for themself. There are not any dire consequences of not sharing those rewards, you will just be at the judgment of your peers. However, with Achievements, the rewards are much rarer and can’t be found anywhere else in this world. You don’t have to share the items you get from completing an Achievement but at the end, you must come together and use the items to get out of this world.”

“So can no one else do the tasks we’re assigned? Like if I was tasked with the food collection but he wasn’t,” Sam pointed to the loner with glasses, “Could he go and do the collecting too, or am I the only one who can?”

“He can, he just won’t get anything from it. Only the person with the task will receive the reward from their own work.”

“Hm… okay.”

“Hey, uh, what happens if we don’t complete the tasks and achievements before the time limit is up?” Nick asked, fidgeting with his hoodie sleeves.

“Simply put… you die,” Panic immediately ran through the group, everyone looking at each other in confusion and fear. The lone teen looked down and his breathing started picking up, the older man immediately went over to try and help the kid calm down from their anxiety attack.

“No need to panic. Each of you will have three lives so missing one task is not the end of the world as you will have more. However, if you do not complete all of the achievements and get to the final task by the end of the year… every single one of you will die, regardless of the number of lives you have. This is why it is crucial for you all to work together if you favor living.”

“...What happens if we lose all three of our lives before then? I'm sure this world isn’t exactly a peaceful place. It’s set up like a video game and every good game has bosses and hostile creatures or environments you need to fight and survive in. Surely not everyone will make it through all that,” The loner in glasses spoke up, looking over at the three teens. His voice was monotone and if it weren’t for the nervous fidgeting of his fingers, Clay could mistake him for being surprisingly calm.

“Well… death is a tricky process here. I’ll let you all find out what happens yourself, but hopefully, you won’t need to.”

This voice was getting on Clay’s nerves and by the clenching of the loner’s jaw, he assumed they weren’t happy with that response either.

“Any other questions before I get onto the final basics?” The voice was met with silence, “Good. You should see a new popup screen asking you for a nickname. This will be your system ID and the tag that is attached to your player. When you gain access to the chat, your nickname is attached to what you type and it will be displayed above your head unless you are hidden. You can’t change this so choose carefully…”

Clay debated on a name for a few minutes, ultimately deciding to go with his usual gamertag, Dream.

“Ugh, picking names is always annoying… What’d you guys do?” Nick looked over at his friends.

“Dream.”

“Awesamdude.”

“Wow, you guys are so creative. A username you’ve used since we were kids and a pun,” Nick rolled his eyes and thought it over a bit more before quickly typing something in.

“What’d you end up going with Mr. Judgy?”

“Bet it was something stupid like ‘CoolDude’ or ‘PandaBoi’,” Sam laughed and nudged Clay who also laughed.

“I decided on Sapnap for your information.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Clay looked at his friend like he had two heads.

“It's pandas backward.”

“Wouldn’t that be ‘Sadnap’ not Sapnap?” Sam asked.

“...The p is upside down.”

“And you said Dream was bad…” Clay rolled his eyes.

“It is! At least mine is original,” Nick huffed and crossed his arms.

Before Clay could respond, the voice was back, “All such great names… some of them are very unique,” He nudged Nick in the side and received a hard jab in return, “Those will be added along with your avatar changes. Let see, what am I forgetting… Oh right, how to access your menus. All of you will have an inventory space of thirty-six slots, nine of which will be your hotbar that should be permanently visible along with your health and hunger stats, and levels. Open your inventory by swiping up in front of you with two fingers.”  
Everyone followed the directions and inventory screens popped up for them all. Clay scanned over it, it was a pretty typical inventory set up. He exited out of the inventory to see the hotbar, a bar on top of it he assumed was the levels, ten hearts and ten pieces of meat above that, obviously health and hunger respectfully. He opened up the main inventory again when the voice continued talking.

“You may notice the model of your person above your storage slots and the others surrounding it. On the left side is four slots for armor and on the right should be four squares. This is your limited crafting menu, you will gain a larger, three by three grid when you make a crafting bench. I assume all of you have played some sort of video game before so I won’t bother going into details. There should be a secondary menu on the left side of your inventory with different tabs. This is your crafting menu, it tells you what you can make with the current resources you have and what resources you need to make other items. You can hide and unhide that menu at any time by swiping it up or swiping down.”

Clay tested it out, using two fingers to move the menu up. It disappeared and his inventory was centered in front of him. He swiped down on the left side and the menus returned to their original places, Nice touch… User friendly.

“Any questions before the game starts?” No one said a word, uneasy tension kept everyone silent, “Great! The game will start shortly.”

A sudden spike of adrenaline surged through Clay, he looked at his two friends, “I have a really bad feeling about this…”

“Three…”

“Same… It’s gonna be fine though. We’ll have each other at least?” Sapnap smiled but there was an uneasy look behind his eyes.

“Two…”

“Yeah… It’ll be okay, we’ll get out of here together,” Sam pat Clay on the back, the same uneasy smile spread across his face.

“Yeah… It’ll be-”

“One.”

There was a sudden blinding light and Clay was cast back into the inescapable void of his mind.


	3. Game Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! Thanks for the love on the last two chapters, it really meant a lot <3
> 
> This chapter is pretty long so be prepared. It also starts off with a nightmare which goes on for a bit but it doesn't have a massive importance to the story so feel free the skip to the bolded "Wake up" If you don't want to read it!
> 
> Anyway enjoy~

Dream laid in the field, staring up at the bright night sky to see if he could find the few constellations he recognized. There was nothing around for as far as the eye could see, just an endless expanse of grassy hills and the shadowy creatures of the night. He took a deep breath, drinking in the night air, and closed his eyes. The gentle breeze felt nice on his skin and the serene quiet began to pull him closer to sweet unconsciousness. There was some shuffling of someone sitting down next to him but he didn’t sit up or open his eyes just yet.

“Sky sure is pretty out here…” Their voice sounded so familiar but he couldn’t remember who it was or who it reminded him of, “The countryside is always the best place to stargaze. Sure the city lights look cool but nothing beats something like this.”

Dream opened his eyes and looked at the stranger. Their face was a blur, just barely there yet completely gone at the same time. It was only slightly unsettling but he didn’t focus on it for long. He looked back up at the sky and saw the stars had changed. They were brighter and the constellations looked like the ones he saw when he was asleep. I’m dreaming… He looked at the stranger once more but their face hadn’t gotten any clearer. He sighed and sat up, stretching his tired muscles, “Yeah…”

“You okay man? You seem a little out of it tonight,” The stranger looked back at Dream curiously.

He just looked away, deciding to focus on the shadow creatures floating along in the distance. None of them had any recognizable shape and their white eyes had a subtle glow in the dark, “I’m fine, just tired…”

“Well, you better wake up before they think you’re dead.”

“Wha-” Dream looked back at the stranger, “What did you just say?”

“Are you dead? Wake up,” They continued to look at the sky.

He looked up and noticed the stars were gone leaving nothing but a dark abyss. When he looked back to the stranger, they were gone. He stood up and glanced around, all of the creatures were now staring at him with their bulging white eyes. The grass under their transparent feet began to turn gray and ashy, spreading quickly in his direction. He turned to run but everywhere he looked was the same. A low growl behind him caught his attention and he turned to see a large monster of shadows with a hundred white, bleeding eyes come from over one of the hills. They locked eyes and the beast let out a deafening shriek before running in Dream’s direction, tearing up grass and dirt as hit moved.

It took him only a second to start running the other way. The edges of his vision blurred with a dark fog as the creature gained on him. His heart was pounding, his lungs and muscles were on fire, and his head felt light but he kept running repeating ‘It’s just a nightmare. It’s not real’ to himself over again hoping he’d wake up soon. The beast roared once more and stomped its feet, making the ground shake so hard it felt like an earthquake. Dream fell to his knees, covering his ears to try and block out the loud noise. The beast pounced but the ground below seemed to swallow him up and he fell into a dark pit before the creature even landed again.

He hit the ground with a thud and a groan of pain. He allowed himself to catch his breath before slowly sitting up and trying to see in the pitch black. There was a low creaking sound as torches lit up in a circle and down a long tunnel in front of him. He could hear the sound of a voice coming from down that way and the muffled roaring of the shadow beast above him. Despite not wanting to follow the ominous voice, he wasn’t exactly comfortable with staying here where the creature might dig through the ground and catch him. So he stood up, dusted himself off, and pulled the ‘white girl in a horror movie’ and went down the spooky tunnel. As he got closer, the voice got louder yet what they were saying still sounded distorted and far away… It was strange. 

Dream turned a corner and ran right into a brick wall. He stumbled back a little and looked at it in confusion, noticing the voice was gone now as well. He turned to go back from where he came but stopped in his tracks when he saw the stranger from earlier running full speed at him. He had nowhere to escape so he just braced for impact as they tackled him to the ground. They grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him violently.

“Wake up! Wake up! Come on, wake up!” Their fingers were digging into his arms now, not letting go no matter how hard Dream struggled to shove them off or get away.

“What are you doing?! Get off me-”

**“Wake up.”**

Dream gasped as he jumped awake, sitting up and looking around in a panic. Three people were kneeled down next to him and a few others were standing off to the side watching the scene. All of them had a name floating over their head in a gray box. He looked up and saw his own name in the same kind of box. He shook his head and went to rub his face, only to hit something solid that definitely wasn’t skin. He panicked for a moment before remembering the mask he wore. He slipped it up so he could rub his eyes.

“You okay man? It looked like you were having a nightmare or a seizure. We thought you were dead or something.”

_That voice…_ Dream looked over at the person who just spoke. They had the name ‘Sapnap’ over their head and they didn’t look like anyone he knew… _But that voice sounds so familiar._ He looked away again and nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry for worrying you all. Where are we-” Suddenly it all came rushing back to him. The voice, the character creation, choosing new names… They were trapped in a simulation by some weirdos and they had a year to collect twelve items or else they’d die. That is if they didn’t die to the environment or to each other first, “Oh right…” He remembered everything yet something still felt like it was missing but he couldn’t quite place what it was.

“So I’m gonna take a guess you don’t know anything about whatever these people want or like- Why the fuck they’re doing this?” Sapnap stood and offered a hand to help Dream stand. He had on a white t-shirt with a small flame design on the front, a black long sleeve undershirt, and a white piece of fabric wrapped around his head like a headband.

“Besides the whole ‘progressing the human race and technology’ thing? No idea,” Dream took the hand and stood up. He reached out and felt for the barrier, somewhat relieved when his hand hit nothing.

“Well, that makes twelve of us,” A woman in light blue overalls and a baggy t-shirt stood up, dusting herself off. She had black hair with a blond streak in the front. She looked very cutesy, especially with the off white flower tucked into the pocket of her overalls. According to her gray box, her name was Nihachu, “It’s nice to meet you… Dream?” Her smile was bright and comforting. He couldn’t help but feel at ease around her even though he probably shouldn’t.

“Yeah… It’s nice to meet you too.” He smiled back and looked at Sapnap, “And you. Thanks for not just assuming I was dead and leaving me behind.”

“He was the first person to think you were,” The third person spoke up, their name read ‘Fundy’. He had some sort of accent that sounded vaguely European. The most out of place thing about him was probably the fact they were a humanoid fox wearing a black hat and human clothes.

“Are… are you a furry?” Dream asked, genuinely confused. 

“What- No-” Fundy looked taken aback by that comment. Sapnap busted out laughing and Nihachu covered her mouth as she tried not to laugh

“I’m not judging! Furries are cool, just uh-” He looked Fundy up and down, “You really look like a furry.”

“I just like foxes! Jeez- You know I’m not the only animal person here,” He pointed to a rather tall guy talking to someone a little farther away. He was a humanoid pig in extravagant royal clothing and a gorgeous crown of gold and rubies sat on his head. Floating above his crown was the name ‘Technoblade’. He was talking to a guy with a white and green striped bucket hat, a full green outfit, and a black cloak that looked like it had the tips of wings poking out from under it. His name said ‘Philza’.

“Okay, I guess that’s fair… So does the other dude have actual wings or…?”

“He does but we tested them out before you woke up and they can’t fly or anything. He can’t even hit things with them, stuff just passes through it so they’re just decoration,” Sapnap shrugged, “Pretty lame honestly.”

“Ah… It makes sense though. Being able to fly, even short distances is a little overpowered for this world.”

“Yeah but hey, maybe we can figure out a way to hack the system and give us admin abilities. We just need someone who can code,” Sapnap chuckled.

“Well-” Dream thought about it. If he told them he worked with code, that could lead to the group losing the very small amount of trust they had in him or being asked to do the impossible of breaking into the system to get out. He decided to stay quiet for now, “I doubt they would’ve put someone who could do that in here. Who knows though. We have no clue how much information they have on us-” Suddenly a message showed up above his hot bar.

_'Karl whispered to You: We have a lot of info on you guys! Everything from birth until now and even everything on your families and friends :)’_

“Well, that answers that,” Dream turned so the three others could see the message.

“That’s totally not creepy at all…” Fundy’s ears twitched nervously.

“Yeah… But look, at least we have the name of someone,” Sapnap pointed to the sender of the message, “You think that was the British guy who was talking to us?”

“Probably not? Karl doesn’t sound very British to me but I live in Florida so I don’t exactly know enough about their names to dispute.”

“Yeah, I’m from Texas- Oh, I just got a message too...” Sapnap turned so the others could see.

_‘Karl whispered to You: That voice was my coworker and he’s very offended that you think I’m him’_

“What- You kind of trapped us in this death world. I don’t care if I offend any of you.”

_‘Karl whispered to You: Well honk you too’_

“What does that mean?” Sapnap looked up at the three and back down to the message, “What does that mean??”

“I think they’re just messing with us, don’t think about it too much,” Dream patted him on the shoulder.

“If the threat of death wasn’t hanging over our heads, I don’t think I’d be very scared of these people… Kidnappers in movies are always these mysterious and terrifying people. This guy is just… not that,” Fundy tilted his head a little.

_‘Karl whispered to You: Excuse you, I’m very scary >:(‘  
‘Karl whispered to You: Just wait until night. You’ll see’_

“Wait what happens at night?” Sapnap looked at the others again.

There was no response this time.

“Oh great, now you made them mad. Looks like we’ll all be losing our first lives tonight, good going,” Fundy rolled his eyes, his tail flicking back in forth in annoyance.

“What? I didn’t do anything, you’re the one who said they weren’t scary!” Sapnap retorted, closing his chat.

“You pissed them off first, I was just pointing out a fact.”

“You made them more upset than I did. If anything happens tonight, I’m blaming it on you.”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Nihachu stepped in between the two, “They said we have to work together to get out, remember? Us fighting is probably exactly what they want.”

“Yeah. Besides if I had to take a guess, nighttime probably means low-level monsters we have to fight just like in any other video game. I doubt either of you had an effect on that,” Dream added.

“I guess you’re right…” Fundy backed down, looking off to the side at the ground.

“Yeah whatever…” Sapnap crossed his arms and kicked at a rock.

“Hey, you four, group meeting!” A tall guy from the group yelled over to them. He had on a green hoodie similar to Dream’s but this one had a gold armor design. He also had a green mask with a blocky sad face and wore a small, solid gold crown. The box above his head said his name was ‘Awesamdude’.

“Guess it’s time to meet the rest of the inmates,” Dream headed over and stood next to the Technoblade guy. Actually taking a look at the guy, he was a lot more intimidating up close.

“Okay, I think the first step should be introductions. Some of us have already introduced ourselves and obviously, we have the gamertags above our heads but if we’re gonna be working together it’d be good to get to know each other first,” Awesamdude suggested, a friendly smile on his face.

“What is this? A middle school icebreaker activity?” A guy with the name ‘Quackity’ laughed.

“What are you? The annoying class clown that nobody likes?” Awesamdude shot Quackity a look that seemed to quiet them so he continued on, “Anyway. Let’s go around and say our names and if you have any information that could be helpful, feel free to share that too. I’ll start if no one else wants to,” He looked around at everyone.

“I’ll go,” One of the teens stepped forward. They looked very… interesting. Half of his skin was pure white while the other half was a rich black. His hair was split down the middle as well but the colors were flipped. On the black side, he had a green eye and your usual white scleras and a red eye with black scleras on the white side. Both were bright and almost looked like they were glowing. Two long tails flicked back and forth behind him; One was white with a black fur tuft on the end and the other was black with a white arrow-like point at the end. He also had two different types of horns sprouting from his forehead alone with some animal-like, droopy ears. They wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to their elbows, black dress pants, a dark red glove and a dark green glove, and a silver crown with a single gem in the center. It was a bright ruby red with emerald green cracks inside of it.

“My name is Ranboo. I don’t really have a lot of information about all of this but I was looking through the crafting menu and it looks like we can get information on some of the items by double tapping it. I found out there are five different types of tools and six different resources we can use to make them. Some have special upsides and downsides and I’m assuming it’s like a progressive process. Like the first set is wooden tools, and there are stone tools, then iron, gold, diamond, and something called netherite. It’s a similar situation with armor but instead of wood it’s leather and it looks like it skips over what would be stone.”

“That’s good to know. That double tapping feature will definitely come in handy, thank you Ranboo,” He nodded and stepped back in place next to the loud blond kid, “Uh, how about you next. Philza, right?” Awesamdude pointed to the winged guy who was standing next to Ranboo.

“Yeah, you can just call me Phil though. I didn’t find much but Techno and I found out if you open up your inventory, there’s a book icon in the top right corner,” He pulled up the screen to show everyone, and surely enough, the icon was there. He clicked on it and a new menu popped up of a list of twelve items with checkboxes next to them along with a secondary tab that looked like a todo list however all but one of the items were grayed and crossed out, “If I had to take a wild guess, I’m gonna assume the checklist is what we get when we complete the achievements and the other list is the tasks we’re assigned every month.” Dream and a few others opened up their inventories and lo and behold, they all had the book as well along with the same type of lists. 

“Hey uh- I have two tasks things that aren’t gray…” Fundy showed his menu. The first one was simple, make four beds, but the second was what caught everyone’s attention.

“Find a taiga and get the final trade from a cleric in the village… Where is a taiga?” Sapnap looked up at Fundy who just shrugged in response.

“Well, a taiga is a coniferous forest typically found in snowy or generally colder areas up in the northern latitudes. Not really sure where north is in this world but that’s more than likely the general direction he has to go,” Techno shrugged.

“Unless this world is different and environments are generated at random or these kidnappers want to mess with us and they flipped the latitudes meaning typically warmer places like a desert would be up north and a taiga would me more south. Depending on how far this taiga is could mean making a month’s travel only to end up in the wrong spot,” Dream crossed his arms and slid his mask down. Weirdly enough, it didn’t feel like he was wearing it. He could see perfectly out of the eye holes and there was no sort of pressure of a mask, it just felt like air.

“That is a possibility we shouldn’t rule out but maybe we should discuss this later?” Awesamdude brought the focus back, “We still need to continue introductions and sharing other intel we’ve gathered. We can’t be too sure what happens during the night or how fast it comes so it’d be best for us to finish this up and work on building a temporary shelter.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Who’s up next?” Dream looked around and Technoblade had raised his hand.

“Um, I’m Technoblade but you can just call me Techno or whatever. Like Phil said, I found the lists with him so I don’t really know anything else…” He looked down at Dream, signaling it was his turn now.

“Oh uh- I'm Dream… I don’t have much either besides Sapnap and I both made contact with one of the kidnappers. It wasn’t much and we really only figured out that the one talking to us wasn’t the voice we heard before all this and it’s more than likely something bad will happen at night.”

“Yeah-” Sapnap quickly pulled up the messages Karl had sent him as did Dream, “We also found out these creeps apparently have a ton of info on us, our families, and friends. Can’t really say how true that is but I wouldn’t put your bets on it being false… I’m Sapnap by the way,” He quickly tagged on an introduction at the end of that.

“Guess it’s my turn… I’m Wilbur Soot but just call me Wilbur. I didn’t really figure anything else out besides what’s already known,” He shrugged, “Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

“That’s alright, not everyone can find anything,” Awesamdude pat Wilbur on the shoulder and smiled, “Me next? Well, I’m Sam. I didn’t find much either but I just wanted to come out and say- I used to work for a company that designed and coded games so I will do my best to help when I can and find something I might be able to exploit to get us out of here sooner. Can’t make any promises but I’ll try.”

Dream admittedly felt a little guilty now. Sam was so open about it yet here he was, hiding it from all these people who could use the knowledge there was a possibility of escape as a way to hope for the future.

“I’m Nihachu but you guys can just call me Niki. I didn’t find anything either, I was with Dream while he was still passed out and up until now,” She fidgeted with the blond streak in her hair.

“I’m Fundy. I was with Niki, Sapnap, and Dream as well so didn’t find much but since Sam came out and said it, I might as well speak up too. I know a bit about coding as well but I don’t work for a company or anything, it’s just a hobby of mine so I probably won’t be as much help as he could be.”

“Hey, that’s okay man. The more help we can get, the better,” Sam smiled at him but that just made the guilt in the pit of Dream’s stomach grow. He just pushed it down and ignored it. Everyone had not one but now two other coders to put their hope in so it’s not like he’d make that much of a difference anyway.

“I’m Quackity. I can’t code or anything and I was with these two the entire time-” He pointed to the two teens standing next to him, “So uh yeah, didn’t find much besides some animals.”

“I’m Tubbo! Like Quackity said, I was with him. We found cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and bees. Also some fish in a stream over the small hill there but we didn’t go down by the waterbed so I’m not really sure what kind of fish,” The kid pointed to a short hill behind him.

“I’m Tommy and yeah, they pretty much said everything,” There was a cow right behind the kid but he seemed to not mind in fact, he would pet it every so often and it’d lick his hand.

“What’s with the cow?” Fundy looked over at it confused.

“This is Henry. He’s my friend,” Tommy leaned against the cow, or would it be a bull since it’s a he? Didn’t really look like a bull but this wasn’t his simulation and he wasn’t a critic so he couldn’t complain.

“Okay… Well when we leave this area, you’ll have to leave him behind you know?” Sam looked at Henry who was staring right into his soul. He quickly looked away to Tommy instead.

“He’ll follow me. Don’t you worry Sammy, I know how to take care of my cows,” He sounded so matter of fact but everyone already knew what would really happen if they tried to keep the thing. No one said a word about it though, can’t crush the kid’s dreams too soon.

“Whatever you say… Uh, shall we start gathering items for a shelter? I saw some trees over there,” Sam pointed behind him, opposite of the stream, “Some of us can go collect wood while others stay and collect food. I saw one of the tools Ranboo mentioned was a hoe meaning we can farm at some point but for now, we’ll probably have to stick to meat and the fish. Ranboo, you looked at the menu more than I did, did you see anything specific that could be made to help us?”

“Oh well, there's a thing called a smoker that cooks food really fast but we need a furnace and logs first. A furnace is made with cobblestone which can only be mined with a pickaxe so we’ll need tools before we can get any of that.”

“Hm, alright. We’ll work on that and hopefully we can get that done before sunset. Fundy one of your tasks was making beds right?” The fox nodded, “Great. Does anyone have that task as well?” Everyone opened up their lists quickly.

“I do,” Niki raised her hand.

“Me too,” Dream walked over to the two.

“Okay cool, you two get what resources you can for that. If this simulation continues going along with video game logic, we may be able to skip over the night time or at least sleeping through it will help us avoid whatever happens.”

The three nodded and headed out into the plains, Sam giving out more orders as they left. Niki had looked up what they needed and what they could gather was wool so now they were on a search for sheep. As soon as a few were spotted, Fundy ran after one and jumped on its back.

“Give us your wool foul beast!” He used his sharp teeth to bite into the shoulder of the creature, causing it to buck him off and run right at Dream and Niki, “Keep it still and distracted while I attack!”

“Uh okay” Dream honestly didn’t know what to do so he just jumped out of the way of the sheep but put his foot out to trip it. It tripped and face planted into the dirt, making a loud, distressed noise. Fundy was on it like a feral beast, biting, clawing, and hitting the poor creature until it poofed into nothing. Two pieces of wool and a slab of mutton were left behind.

“We did it! That wasn’t so hard,” Fundy put the items in his inventory.

“Yeah but you didn’t almost get run over by a charging sheep,” Niki shook her head and looked at the other two animals. They seemed to not be bothered by their sibling dying a terrible death by the fox. She walked up to one and punched it in the side, sending it running at Fundy who was in position to attack again, “Oh I feel bad now-”

“Yeah, this feels like borderline animal abuse even though they’re just a ton of ones and zeros,” Dream laughed and tackled the sheep to the ground before it got to Fundy. He hit it a few times before it wiggled out from his grip. It ran a little but the freedom didn’t last before it was tackled yet again and poofed into wool tufts and meat, “This isn’t too bad though. Tiring, but not bad.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of fun. The thrill of the hunt is exhilarating,” Fundy’s tail swished from side to side behind him as he latched himself to the last one.

“Glad you two are having fun…” Niki sighed and started looking for more sheep while the two boys dealt with the current one.

~

“Okay so now that we have a good camp set up, I think we’re safe to just hang out for the remainder of the day. We can discuss where to go from here tomorrow, any objections?” Sam stood in front of two furnaces, two smokers, and a crafting table in the middle of the camp. The sheep hunters had gathered plenty of mutton and another group who broke off from the lumberjacks got some more meat so everyone was well fed and decently stocked up on food. Or that was the hope. The lumberjacks had gotten loads of wood so there were four wooden huts with three beds in each surrounding the cooking and crafting area. It was past noon and the sun wasn’t close to setting but it was close enough that having a long conversation and debate about where to go would be pointless.

“Works for me,” Techno stood up and went to his hut he shared with Wilbur and Phil.

“I’m gonna get some flowers for Henry, Tubbo come with me and we can try to catch you a bee,” Tommy jumped up and grabbed the other kid’s arm to drag him along. The cow followed the two at a slightly slower pace but the boys made frequent stops to let him catch up. It was a little surprising how quickly Tommy and Tubbo became friends but it makes sense considering they were just two kids trapped in a traumatizing death game with only one other person close to their age. Dream just hoped all three of them got out of here alive.  
Ranboo stayed behind, looking through the crafting menus again until Fundy and Niki came over to talk to him. They spoke for a little bit before wandering off into the fields together in the same direction as Tommy and Tubbo. Wilbur was talking with Phil around their hut, keeping quiet just in case Techno was sleeping. Sam, Sapnap, and Quackity were all talking around the furnaces but they headed off towards the stream leaving Dream by himself. He could always just call it a night but he wasn’t really tired yet so he just decided to head off in a direction by himself to look around a bit. He had the stone sword Ranboo gave him in hand just in case he ran into trouble or food.

“Travelling pretty far from the group. Are you already abandoning them?” That annoying disembodied voice was back.

“I’m just exploring. I’ll be back before sunset, besides I can still see gamertags so I’m not that far,” Dream glanced back to make sure of himself. The gray boxes could still be seen and the names were still readable so he continued on, “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing much…” The voice went quiet for a few seconds, “You’re smart for not telling them that you’re a coder. Puts too much pressure on you, especially since none of you would be able to find a way to get out and they’d just become disappointed in you.”

“Why did you put three coders in here anyway? Your buddy Karl said you guys know everything about us so it seems like a stupid move.”

“Gotta make things interesting somehow.”

Dream rolled his eyes and glanced back to make sure he wasn’t getting too far. He could barely read the names now so he took a right and kept going, “Why are you doing this? And don’t give me that ‘Improving the human race’ bull.”

“Why should I tell you? You’re pretty much a rat trying to escape a maze.”

“Oh and are you the mad scientist?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m mad… but I am a scientist thank you for asking.”

“God, you’re annoying. Why are you even talking to me? Don’t you have more important business to attend to besides bugging me?” Dream stopped to kill some pigs he found. The screams and artificial smell of blood were awful to deal with but it was for the better of the group. Besides, it wasn’t like they were real.

“I don’t know… You’re interesting. You work at a small video game company with one of your close friends meanwhile you do streams on the side with your childhood best friend. Your family doesn’t come from wealth but you’re not in poverty. A good relationship with your sisters and mom, not so much your dad… yikes, daddy issues?” It sorta sounded like they were reading off something. Like a character sheet.

Dream rolled his eyes again and attacked a random sheep, not wanting to respond to that question.

“You don’t necessarily have any sort of fame or importance in this world yet you still got stuck here with equally typical people. And this little ‘game’ you’re playing? It’s a breathtaking piece of machinery combined with neuroscience to keep you asleep here yet letting you feel all the painful parts just like real life. Speaking of, you might not want to go into that cave…”

The dream stopped right outside of the mouth of a dark cave. He couldn’t see much but there were all sorts of strange sounds coming from it. He took a step closer to get a better view when an arrow flew by his face. He screamed and jumped away preparing his sword to fight whatever stepped out. He dodged a few more arrows as a skeleton came hobbling out of the cave, a bow drawn and aiming right at his chest. Its skull was cracked and yellowed with age and it didn’t even have a jaw. There was nothing on the bones, not even tendons meaning the thing was being held together by code and maybe a little magic if this world had it.

It fired another shot and hit Dream right in the arm, making him drop his sword. He yelled out in pain, noticing he went down three and a half hearts. He went to run but something invisible blocked his path.

“Just wait…”

He was about to yell at the voice before an unholy wail came from the undead creature along with the smell of smoke. He looked back and noticed the skeleton had stepped into the sunlight and was now aflame. It fired one last feeble shot before bursting into a puff of smoke and dropping two bones and a bow.

“Told you not to go into that cave Mousey.”

“First of all- What the hell was that? Second of all, when did I change from a rat into a mouse?” Dream let himself calm down and heal up his hearts before picking up the loot. He looked disappointedly at the very low durability of the bow but it wasn’t like he had arrows to shoot anyway. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the bones either so he just kept both items in his inventory for now. He felt kinda weird about the whole bones thing since they looked very human but he just had to keep reminding himself it was just a ton of code.

“Well, calling you rat is just dehumanizing-”

“Mousey isn’t? Also, you called me a rat not even ten minutes ago...” Dream looked up at the changing colors of the sky and started heading back before it turned to night time.

“Mousey is an actual adjective so no it isn’t. To answer your other question, that was a skeleton. One of the many monsters you’ll meet in this world.”

“And they catch fire?”

“In the sun, yes. Loads of other monsters that do the same thing but you’ll find those later on.”

“Huh… okay then… Why’d you help me though? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me die?”

“Can’t let the experiment end too quickly, now can I, Mousey?”

Dream didn’t respond, deciding it was better to walk in silence the rest of the way. As soon as the camp was in view again, something hit him backward. He looked around wildly but saw nothing until a piece of paper slowly fell down in front of him. He looked up at the sky and slowly picked the sheet up. There was a small arrow in the middle of the page with a circle of color around it while the rest was yellowish, off-white with a few grayed-out features here and there. He walked closer to the camp while studying it, only to see more color was filled in as he walked.

“Hey Dream! What’s that you got there?” Sam greeted him and looked at the paper curiously.

“A map I think? It’s mostly blank though but I think we could use this to find some places. See those really light triangles here?” He pointed to three grayed-out triangles near the bottom right corner, “ That could mean there are mountains there right?”

“Oh, shit- Uh, yeah maybe… where’d you get this?” Sam took the map to get a closer look.

“It just kinda fell in front of me… I think the kidnappers gave it to us.”

“Huh… Well, hold onto this until tomorrow’s meeting. The sun is about to set and we definitely don’t want to be caught out here during that, yeah?”

Dream rubbed his arm where the skeleton shot him, noticing the blood and arrow was gone. They must’ve disappeared when he healed, “Yeah…” He followed Sam to theirs and Sapnap’s hut to sleep for the night.

~~~

“Why’d you give him that paper?” Bad walked up to George who was standing close to the big scream, wearing a headset and a mic.

“Having them run around like idiots is fun but if we want this experiment to succeed, we have to give them a little help here and there. Throw an animal into a new environment and it won’t know what to do. It won’t know what food is safe to eat, it won’t know how to defend itself from threats, it just sits and does nothing useful until it dies,” George took off the headset and looked at Bad again, “Besides, it’s not like I gave him a golden apple and told him the weaknesses of the dragon. I simply showed him a feature of the game and provided some sort of direction,” He looked back up at the sleeping Dream and his facial features that had been hidden under the mask all day. He was rather good looking… 

“I suppose… but be careful. We can’t risk making them reliant on our help either. We have to make sure our influence is little to none,” George wasn’t paying attention, just staring at the blond man, “George?”

“Hm? Yeah, don’t interfere. I know. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything majorly disruptive. You and I have slaved over this project for the past few years, I couldn’t stand seeing it failing because of some idiotic mistake like that. Don’t worry,” He smiled at his friend and coworker reassuringly.

“Okay… I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t forget to put the machine to sleep before you leave,” Bad walked back to his desk to gather his items before leaving. Everyone had already gone back to their dorm rooms for the night, leaving the room empty and quiet. George just looked up at the screen again.

“I guess Mousey isn’t a very good nickname… You’re practically the opposite. Maybe you’ll give me an idea for another soon,” He looked for a moment longer before heading back to his desk. He pulled up the system on his computer and typed something in. The room went dark except for the big screen showing the different cabins and his holographic screen.

Putting the machine on sleep temporarily pauses the simulation until it was woken up again. It allowed for the team to sleep in real life when the players did. However it only worked if all players we're in bed which wasn't ideal but they had a shift schedule set in place for those nights

**"Status: Sleep Mode. Goodnight 404."**

The robotic voice came through the speakers. George did some final cleanup and headed for the door, “Goodnight…” He gave the big screen one final look before finally leaving, a series of security systems locking the door behind him.


	4. Taking Inventory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno goes on a small exploring excursion with Ranboo and things don't go according to plan.
> 
> "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." ~Mark Twain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Im so sorry this took forever to get out, life has been really chaotic recently with school and family stuff so I just haven't been able to work or haven't had the motivation to.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter! <3

Techno sat on the hill near the camp, watching the vivid colors of sunrise slowly fade into the gray-blue color of early morning. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, allowing himself to relax a little and listen to his gentle surroundings. The rush of the stream below and the occasional animal noises in the distance was surprisingly soothing. The real-life feel of this simulation world brought a strange sense of comfort… He wasn’t sure he liked how calm it made him feel but thinking about it for too long made him anxious so he just decided to deal with whatever surreal reality he was living in for the time being.

“Techno, group meeting!” Sam called from the direction of the camp.

He sighed and stood up again, dusting himself off. He started heading back towards the group, honestly preferring the quiet solitude of the hill but unfortunately, this game could only be beaten in multiplayer. He went to stand next to Phil and Wilbur, not really liking them any more than the others but he’s talked to them the most so far so talking to them again wasn’t the end of the world. It’s not like he didn’t like everyone, they seemed nice enough, he just wasn’t the best in social situations nor with sudden changes so randomly being thrown into a situation only heard of in sci-fi with a group of complete strangers wasn’t exactly his favorite thing. However, this whole simulation, despite its uncanny realness, was just a big game at its very core and games were something he was rather familiar with. Granted he doesn’t do big-time coding like Sam or even as a hobby like Fundy but he’s played games almost every day since he was a tiny kid, learning the ins and outs of all his favorites to the point of being accused of cheating was a daily occurrence. He particularly liked survival-based games where a little bit of grinding can get you decently far and from the looks of it, that’s pretty much what this world is.

“Okay everybody, how did you all sleep?” Sam was obviously a morning person with that cheery attitude. Taking a look around at the tired faces and the Tommy child half-asleep on the back of his cow, no one else was. Dream and Ranboo both looked particularly rough with Ranboo almost falling asleep standing up and Dream flinching at every sudden noise. Techno wasn’t feeling much better but in all fairness, he never sleeps and when he does, it’s not always restful so he was used to the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

“Like a baby,” Sapnap responded, voice dripping in sarcasm.

“That was the worst… I had a shitty nightmare last night but for some reason, I couldn’t wake up no matter how hard I tried,” Dream ran his hands over his mask, apparently forgetting it was there because he sighed harshly and flipped it up to run his hands over his actual face. Techno almost felt bad for the guy. Almost. 

“Huh… that’s weird. Maybe there’s something that keeps us asleep during the night time? The kidnappers have to sleep at some point too so it’d make sense they do it at the same time we do,” Phil shrugged, “Either that or you just had a really unlucky night.”

“Let me go back to sleep and I’ll test it out,” Tommy yawned as he slid off the back of his cow, “It’s too early for this shit…”

“You can’t go back to bed after you wake up. Trust me, I tried. Many times,” Ranboo was partially leaning against Sam now.

“Are you sure you slept at all, kid? You look like you’re about to pass out any second,” Techno looked them up and down. They were rather tall and their voice was deeper than the other two teens so he probably would’ve mistaken them for an adult if they didn’t mention being taken on their walk home from school yesterday. Well, they blurted it out during a nasty panic attack after everyone woke up again and Phil had to calm them down.

“I did… it just felt like halfway through the night I partially woke up but I was still dreaming? Like that feeling right before you actually fall asleep,” Ranboo yawned, “Kinda like what Dream said, I couldn’t actually wake up even when I tried. I was just… stuck.”

“I swear we’re all just unwilling test subjects in a new VR game or something,” Dream shook his head, “Anyway, shouldn’t we get this meeting on with? We’re losing daylight.”

“Right. Dream, how about you go first? Show everyone the thing you found yesterday,” Sam seemingly didn’t mind Ranboo leaning against him, just continuing like normal.

“Oh yeah…” Dream held out his hand and a piece of paper appeared, “I think the kidnappers gave me a map or something? I’m pretty sure the white arrow is me and wherever I go, more color and features fill in around it. I spent this morning filling in the camp and some of the surrounding areas that you can faintly see,” He held it out so everyone could look.

“What about the green arrow? Who’s that?” Tubbo pointed to another arrow across from the white one. It was easy to pass over since the green of the grass on the map and the green of the arrow were similar shades but now that he pointed it out, it was clearer to see.

“The what?” Dream flipped the map back around and stared at it. Techno rolled his eyes a little wondering how the guy who apparently spent all morning staring at this thing didn’t notice but he didn’t comment on it, “Huh-”

“Wait let me see,” Sam quietly apologized to Ranboo and started to walk towards Dream.

“Wait wait,” Dream took a step back, still staring at the map, “Sam, spin around or something.”

“Um, okay…?” Sam awkwardly did a small turn, “Why’d I have to do that?”

“The green arrow is you. It moves when you do so unless there’s an invisible person doing your exact moves right where you are, then it has to be you.”

“Are there other arrows we’re just not noticing? Why would we be on there but no one else?”

“I’m not sure… I don’t see any others,” Dream took a closer look at the map before handing it to Sapnap next to him, “What about you?”

“No, I- Wait what…” Sapnap turned the map around again and suddenly there was a bright orange arrow standing next to the white one, “Look, I’m not very observant when I’m tired but I’m pretty sure that that thing wasn’t there before.”

“I wanna see!” Quackity snatched the map from Sapnap and laughed, “Woah… There’s a blue one too now,” He started spinning around in place and moving from side to side, “That’s so cool!” 

“Give me that,” Dream took the map back and handed it over to Sam, “I guess more will appear whenever a new person holds it.”

“That’s what we’ll have to assume I guess. I did hold it last night so it makes sense,” Sam shrugged and handed the map over to Ranboo, “Okay so we’re gonna pass it around so everyone can get their arrow on the map. When we’re traveling or when we split up, this can help us keep track of everyone to make sure no one dies or gets lost.” The map got passed around like a teacher giving their students a cool thing to look at during a lesson until it was back to Sam. Techno didn’t really pay attention to what colors the others were, he just knew he was light pink.

“Are we gonna display it or are you just gonna keep it on you?” Dream asked, stretching a little.

“Uh- Ranboo, you looked through the crafting menu a lot,” Sam looked up at them, “Is there anything to show this off? It’d probably be better to keep it where everyone can see it.”

“There’s an-” Ranboo cut himself off with a yawn, “An item frame. We need a piece of leather and eight sticks surrounding it in the crafting table.”

“Any restrictions for it? Don’t wanna waste resources on something useless,” Sam moved to the crafting table in the center, pulling up its menu and putting the items in the boxes. Smaller versions showed up on the actual table itself like a hologram of sorts.

“Not that I remember but some items have three gray question marks instead of information. I can’t remember if it was one of them but I don’t think so…”

“Do you have short term memory loss or something?” Quackity snickered.

“Oh um- Yeah I do actually…” Ranboo looked down, “Sorry I should have mentioned that before…”

“Oh-” Quackity stopped laughing but there wasn’t even a moment of awkward silence before Tommy was laughing and nudging him harshly.

“Wow, you’re so bad at socializing. Get good Big Q or you’re never gonna get the ladies.”

“Oh shut up or I’ll make another item frame from Henry’s leather,” Quackity nudged him back even harder.

“You even lay a finger on Henry and I’ll stab you,” Two small, pale gray lights formed a stone sword in Tommy’s hand. It wasn’t much but it was all the group had currently and without armor, it could probably kill any of them. Techno was honestly hoping for a fight but unfortunately, Tubbo stepped in between the two and pushed Tommy back a little.

“Quackity, no killing Henry. Tommy, no killing Quackity,” Sam sighed and placed the item frame on a dirt block next to one of the furnaces. Techno thought it was weird how such a high-quality system used blocks for units but to each their own.

“He started it! He threatened my precious Henry,” Tommy put away his sword and hugged the cross-eyed cow affectionately.

“No, you started it with your dumb comments!”

“Well, I’m ending it. Cut it out you two before I make you,” Sam put the map in the item frame, looking over the arrows to double-check what color was who.

“What are you gonna do, ground us?” Tommy mocked him and Quackity laughed along.

“Yeah, are you our dad or something?”

Two small white lights appeared in Sam’s hand and a silver, metallic sword appeared. It wasn’t anything fancy, just looked like your typical claymore. He shot the two a sharp glare, “You wanna bet? I don’t mind keeping you two locked up in your houses for the day.” Techno gave a small smile, honestly hoping for something to finally happen. He’s not sure where or how Sam got that sword but the fact he had it made things more interesting.

“No sir,” Both boys said in unison and went to talking amongst themselves and casting occasional glances at Sam.

“Good. Now feel free to look at this map whenever you want but please leave it in the frame unless you’re gonna fill it in more but that’s something we’ll get to later,” He put his sword away again and the more bubbly personality was back. Techno sighed in disappointment at the lack of bloodshed, “Which brings us to our next topic of discussion: finding the taiga and a village in it. There’s no telling how long this journey will take or what we’ll come across during it so we need to prepare. I’m not saying we sit here and get full iron armor since that will take far too long, but iron swords and a piece of armor for everyone is a must. This map only shows a limited area so we can send scavenging parties to explore but until our primary goal of protection and a weapon, movement outside of our ‘safe’ area should be limited to none especially on your own. I suggest a buddy system and anytime you leave camp, you take your buddy with you. It’ll also help when we travel to make sure no one goes missing or gets hurt on their own. Any objections? None? Good.”

It was like a classroom the way everyone made eye contact with the people they wanted to be ‘buddies’ with. Techno looked at Phil only to see him talking quietly with Wilbur and nodding in some sort of agreement. _Well fuck…_ He looked around in a panic, hoping to catch Sam’s or even Dream’s eye but a gentle tug at his cape caught his attention.  
“Hey Techno… I was wondering if you could be my buddy?” Ranboo was looking at him with their big red and green eyes. Gross, a child.

“Uhhh- Wouldn’t you prefer to partner with one of the other kids? Or even Quackity?” Techno looked around and saw Tommy and Tubbo already together and Quackity talking with Sam.

“Well um… I thought we could partner up since we both have crowns?” Ranboo looked down and messed with his gloves. Techno could practically smell the social anxiety on this kid. Social anxiety means less talking so… He turned and started walking off.

“Whatever, just follow me and keep the chit chat to yourself please.”

“Oh- Okay!” Ranboo followed close behind, “Shouldn’t we tell Sam we’re leaving though?”

“He has the map. I don’t think it matters,” Techno was heading for the hill again so they could cross the stream. He wanted to explore and hopefully find a cave with some ores, “Besides, I don’t exactly follow the orders of a leader I didn’t choose.” 

“Oh… Okay,” There was a beat of awkward silence before Ranboo said quietly, “I think he’s a good leader. He’s nice…”

Techno didn’t respond, he just continued until they got to the streambed, “I think we can just walk across. It’s not terribly deep, we’re both tall, and the current doesn’t look strong so we probably won’t need to swim much if at all,” He looked back to Ranboo who was just staring at the water with a face of terror, “You good kid?”

“I- Can we please go somewhere else? Please?”

“What? Why?”

“I just- just- Please?” Their panic just seemed to be growing the longer they were around the stream.

“Would it be better if I made a bridge? I wanna get to the other side but I don’t need you having a panic attack five minutes into our little excursion.”

“Um… Maybe? I have some blocks too, just please put walls on it,” Ranboo quickly opened his inventory and threw down a pile of dirt before stepping back to the bottom of the hill. He sat down and was mumbling to himself, probably some breathing exercise.

Techno just got to work, admittedly feeling bad for the kid. He’s not sure why they’re so terrified of water but the least he could do was make things a little easier on a journey he dragged them into. He picked up the floating pile of dirt blocks and started bridging across, making a two-block high wall on either side of the path. It didn’t take a lot to get to the other side, he probably didn’t even dig into the dirt supply Ranboo gave him but it was done now, and truthfully he was relieved he didn’t have to get wet.

“Bridge is done, you can cross now!” He called out to the distressed teen, still sitting at the bottom of the hill. They looked up and nodded, approaching the bridge with a lot of hesitance. They crossed the entire thing with their eyes closed, shuffling along slowly and using the walls to guide them until they made it safely to the other side.

“Thank you and sorry… I just… haven’t had good experiences with bodies of water…” Ranboo started messing with his gloves again, “Sorry… Memory loss and a deathly fear of water. Sort of a weak link, eh?” He chuckled but there was nervousness behind it.

Techno sighed and bonked them on the head, “You gotta stop apologizing so much kid. I know neither of us look like it right now but we’re all just people who had the unfortunate luck of ending up in this game simulation. You have fears and flaws like everyone else and sure, they’re a little inconvenient but so what? I’m sure everyone in the group has something that is gonna hold us back in one way or another. Besides, it’s not like you asked to be here. So…” He ruffled Ranboo’s already messy hair, “Stop beating yourself up over something you can’t control.”

“I-” Ranboo looked at him with big eyes. He laughed a little and smiled, “Okay. Thank you Techno, that honestly means a lot to me.”

Techno felt a little awkward now but he just brushed it off and started heading up the small hill on this side, “Yeah yeah, whatever. This doesn’t mean we’re friends to be clear. We’re strictly business partners for traveling.”

Ranboo laughed again and followed, “Got it. Just buddies for road trips.”

“Business partners. Not buddies.”

“What business do we own? We don’t have anything no one else does so I don’t think we’ll be making much profit.”

“I make sure you stop apologizing for no reason and anytime you do, you get me twenty pieces of cobblestone.”

“That seems more like a trade deal than a business…”

“Fine, we’re trade partners. That’s it.”

Ranboo laughed again and Techno was happy to see the kid in higher spirits. He’d never admit it though. They walked in comfortable silence for a while with a few stops here and there so Ranboo could pick up flowers and random chunks of dirt. It was a little weird but everyone had their interests and Techno wasn’t going to judge. The kid was terrified of water so maybe bits of land kept him calm?

“You know, before this whole… thing,” Ranboo motioned to the world around them, “I used to keep journals of important events, dates, or really just anything so if I forgot it, I could just find it in my journals. When I was looking through the crafting menus, I noticed there’s a book and quill that would work perfectly for that. I can’t make it right now though which sucks but it’s a nice hope for the future. Maybe the village we go to will have some empty books I can use…”

“What do you need to make it? The supplies shouldn’t be too hard to get.”

“Let me double-check…” Ranboo pulled up the crafting menu and clicked on a small box that pulled up a keyboard.

“Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t even notice it had a search feature but I guess it makes sense,” Techno looked over their shoulder. He didn’t spend much time in the menus but it was good the group had someone like Ranboo who did.

“Yeah, it makes it so much easier to find one item instead of hunting it down in the categories or scrolling through the list of all the items,” Ranboo clicked on the book and quill, a small blurb of words appearing next to it on the crafting menu, and faint images of the ingredients showed up in the four squares next to his avatar, “A book, a feather, and an ink sac. We have feathers but I don’t know where’d we get ink sacs and I don’t know how to get the paper to make the book…”

“Well, the ink sac doesn’t have a k at the end so I’m assuming they’re probably from a squid or an octopus or something so that’s more likely than not a water thing…” Techno could see Ranboo’s hopes and dreams get crushed, “But uh- The paper is probably made with wood right?”

“Oh maybe,” Ranboo clicked the paper and the usual blurb of text appeared below it but a picture of the nine square crafting boxes with three green things labeled ‘sugar cane’ showed up above it, “Sugar cane? Where do we find that?”

“Usually it’s found in tropical areas but I think I saw some next to the stream bed so I think it’s another water thing…”

“Oh…” Ranboo closed the menus and went quiet, “Well that’s okay. Maybe I’ll be lucky and find one somewhere?” He shook his head and started walking ahead, head hanging low. Techno wasn’t a fan of children but he honestly felt bad for this kid. Ugh, stupid empathy…

“I’ll let you know if I ever find anything. Not all hope is lost. Let’s just… continue exploring for now and who knows, maybe we’ll come across something good.”

“Yeah okay…” Ranboo stood up a little straighter but he could tell they were still pretty disappointed. Maybe he can convince someone from the group to go squid and sugar cane hunting later… “Where are we going by the way? I don’t think you ever said.”

“Oh, just to find a cave. Maybe we can get some iron or loot if we come across monsters.”

“I still have wooden tools… I don’t think I’ll be very helpful fighting or mining anything right now sorry….”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of cobblestone after you get me twenty pieces of it. You just apologized for no reason.”

“What- but I do have a reason to be sorry!” Ranboo stopped and looked back surprised.

“Only like half the group has stone tools and you went with the food gatherers yesterday, right?”

“I mean, yeah but-”

“No buts. You weren’t in the mining group so the only tools you’ve gotten so far was the wooden set Sam gave you, right?” 

“Well, I mean… yeah but still-”

“Not something you can control so you don’t need to be sorry. End of story,” Techno shrugged and kept walking into the forest, “So when we find a cave, you gotta get me twenty cobblestone but since I’m nice, you can use three pieces to make yourself a new pick.”

“...Can I take eight and make myself a new pick, sword, and ax?”

“ _Jeez_ , Ranboo, why don’t you just rob me blind- Yeah, I don’t care. I don’t really need cobblestone but that was the first thing I could think of.”

Ranboo laughed, “Okay then, I guess I’m gonna get a new toolset. Thanks, Techno!’

“I don’t know why you’re thanking me, I’m not helping you get anything.”

“Well, I- Okay that’s fair… Uh- unthank you…?”

“Don’t mention it,” Techno patted him on the shoulder and walked ahead. He saw a hole up ahead and made a beeline for it, hoping it could be a cave and wasn’t just some random water pool. Fortunately, it was exactly what they were looking for. He peered over the edge into the hole that went almost straight down. It’d be tricky to get down and back up again but it was doable plus there were some ores down there that he wanted to get.

“That’s a big drop…” Ranboo was looking now too, “You think this game has fall damage?”

“I’d be more surprised if it didn’t,” Techno shrugged and started slowly making his way down, “Just watch your step and be wary of your surroundings. Who knows what the monsters could do in this world or where they could be.”

“Alright…” Ranboo followed close behind and every time Techno looked back, he saw they were either watching their feet with intense concentration or staring into the darkness of the cave like they were afraid something was going to pop out any second.  
Nothing happened luckily and they made it to the bottom with only one or two hearts of damage taken. Techno pulled out a torch and placed a couple around, “You get the coal here and I’ll get the iron over there,” He went into the mouth of the cave, placed a few torches, and held out his hand, four pale gray lights forming a stone pickaxe in his hand.

“Okay!” Silence fell between them, the only sound now was their pickaxes hitting stone and ore. It was kind of nice… peaceful.

_“-han, spawn a creeper at-”_ A quiet whisper spoke up and Techno looked around wildly. Ranboo was still mining away happily like they didn’t hear anything and no monsters had come near yet… Was he going crazy? He shook his head and continued getting the last bit of iron ore.

“I’m don- Techno watch out!” Ranboo’s voice had gone from cheery to panic in a second flat and there was a hissing sound that could be heard.

Everything seemed to slow down as Techno turned to see a green monstrosity that looked like it wore a mutilated pig head with a pixelated frown like Sam’s mask. He didn’t even have time to react to it expanding like it was gonna explode before Ranboo jumped in the way, maybe landing a hit before a loud explosion knocked them both back. Techno landed a bit farther away, hitting the stone with a dull thud before hitting the ground again. He swore he blacked out for a second or two. He sat up on shaky arms and looked around with blurry vision, a ringing in his ears, and a painful throbbing in his skull. Once he could see properly, he noticed the area he was just at was now a small crater with blood splatters on the cave walls and floor. Something was missing though…

“Ranboo!” Techno saw a lump of black, white, and red a little ways from the explosion site. Adrenaline shot through his chest as he jumped up and limped over to the kid, ignoring the burning pain in his ankle and the one and a half hearts above his hotbar. He didn’t even think before building a small shack around them using the dirt Ranboo had given him earlier. He knelt down and checked for a pulse, breathing a heavy sigh of relief when he felt the light beat. There was so much blood, he wasn’t really sure where it was all coming from which is what worried him most, “Ranboo, you gotta wake up. Come on, come on, _come on…”_ Techno practically ripped his cape off, trying to tear it with his hands but quickly giving up and just pressing it to the worst looking area on their side. He’s not sure if this world followed real-life emergency procedures but it's better to be safe than sorry. 

“Techno…?” A quiet whine came from Ranboo after pressure was applied, “T-Techno I can’t see… I-I can’t hear… Techno?” One of their eyes had a piece of stone lodged into it and the other was only able to open about halfway, both were bleeding pretty bad. The white ear looked shredded and left a small stream of blood dripping down their cheek, mixing with the rest of the scarlet pools.

“I’m here kid,” Techno wiped a bit of blood off their cheek and Ranboo seemed to relax slightly but they were still shaking pretty bad, “It’s okay, you’re okay,” He was more saying that to himself than anything. The kidnappers said everyone has three lives but what if that was a lie…

“Techno I’m scared… it’s dark and quiet… everything hurts… A-Am I going to die…?” Ranboo’s breathing was shallow and his quiet voice was raspy. He sounded like he wanted to cry and hell, maybe tears were mixing with the blood dripping down his face...  
Techno carefully took the green gloved hand and wrote ‘No’ on the palm, “Not if I can help it, kid. Not here, not now, not ever in this stupid world…” His heart was racing but his mind was going about ten times faster with every possible solution. He was thinking over every single game he’s played, trying to think of possible health regeneration methods.

“Okay… I.. I’ll believe you…Thank you…”

“Don’t mention it…” It was obvious health didn’t recover just from time otherwise he’d be sort of better by now, he didn’t have any sort of healing kit or potion but he wasn’t even sure this game had that, no crystals either… He was starting to panic even more, especially since the puddle of blood around Ranboo was getting bigger and he still had no idea what to do.

_‘Captain Puffy whispered to You: Remember to watch your hunger stats :)’_

Techno stared at the message in disbelief that in the middle of a crisis, they decided to comment on his _hunger stats._ Were they just mocking him or… He looked at his two hearts and half-empty hunger. _Only one way to find out._ He ate a couple pieces of steak and watched his hearts carefully. After a second, they pulsed and, sure enough, started going up. The sharp pain in his head and chest dulled, the cuts on his face and neck closed, his ankle felt better… The pain was still faintly there but it didn’t feel like he was fatally injured. He took Ranboo’s hand again and traced ‘Eat’ with a heart with a plus sign next to it.

“What…? You want me to… eat?” Ranboo looked up slightly, making a quiet noise of pain when they moved.

Techno traced a hasty ‘Yes’ before shoving some steak in their hand.

“Oh… okay…” Ranboo brought the food up to their mouth and slowly began eating. They stilled and after what felt like an hour, their breathing slowly became deeper. The blood on their skin and clothes looked like it was dissolving, the gashes across their body seemed to be healing up, and the stone in their eye crumbled into gravel.

“Ranboo? Can you hear me?” Techno asked, nervous for the answer, “Can you see again?”

Ranboo didn’t respond. He spluttered for a second and coughed hard for a few minutes, tiny sharp rocks and blood splattering on the stone floor. He sat up on his elbow and wiped the blood off his chin, “Sort of… Everything is still blurry and muffled but yeah…” His voice was even raspier than before, probably from coughing up rocks, but he sounded alive and that was the important part.

“Thank god,” Techno fell back with a sigh. His head still hurt but it felt more like a migraine than a concussion and his ankle was sore but not sprained so that was a relief. He glared at Ranboo, “First of all- What the _hell_ were you thinking?! Why would you just jump in front of me like that especially when it was a monster we know nothing about- You could have _died!_ Do you understand that? _Don’t_ do that again.”

Ranboo sat up fully, looking down in shame. They took their crown off and fidgeted with it, “I’m really sorry… I just saw that thing and I thought I could get to it before something happened…”

Techno sighed harshly, “It’s okay but seriously, don’t try something like that again. You’re still a kid, you don’t need to be risking your life. If something dangerous happens and I die or get hurt, your job is to block yourself in and wait for me or someone else in the group to come and get you. Save yourself before you try saving me, got it?” Ranboo nodded and Techno huffed, relaxing a bit, “Good. Secondly… Thank you for saving me,” Ranboo looked up at him surprised, “I have no idea what that creature was and I probably would have died if you didn’t jump into the way. So… thank you.”

Ranboo’s surprise turned into a small smile, “Don’t mention it. I’m just glad we both ended up okay but boy do I not recommend getting exploded by one of those things. Hurts like heck.”

_“Then don’t jump into the middle of its explosions,”_ Techno jabbed Ranboo in the chest.

“Ow- Still hurts man,” Ranboo ran his hand over the places his wounds used to be like he was expecting to feel blood. He wiped some gravel from underneath his eye and Techno was happy to see there was only a red line in the sclera like it was scratched.  
  
“Sorry-” Techno looked at his cape that was tossed haphazardly to the side. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact it was red and he couldn’t see the blood or if it had disappeared completely. He wasn’t expecting it to since the scarlet pool around Ranboo hadn’t gone away but when he picked it up, the cloth was completely dry. He stared at it in confusion for all of five seconds before shrugging it off as something to figure out later. He stood up, and slipped it on again, honestly relieved none of the buttons or decorative chains had broken off in his haste, “I know we weren’t out for long, but I think that’s enough excitement for a while. Plus, we should probably get you back to camp to make sure you don’t have any lasting effects. You can see and hear clearly now, right?” He broke a small hole in the wall to make sure there were no monsters surrounding them. There was a glimpse of movement further in the darkness which was scary but nothing currently around them from what he could see,

“Everything’s kinda going in and out of focus still, my right eye hurts a little, and I got a headache but that's about it for that,” Ranboo hauled himself up and dusted off his shirt. He was putting all his weight on his right side though which might mean they sprained or broke something too.

_Gotta ask Phil to check that out…_ He mentioned being part of some medical field, but Techno didn’t really remember which.

“Can you walk is probably the more important question,” Techno took down the rest of the dirt walls and checked his inventory to make sure they had enough supplies to get back up. He only got five pieces of iron which wasn’t ideal but it’s better than nothing plus Ranboo got a bit of coal which was always helpful.

“Yeah for the most part. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, I have full hearts, but everything still hurts. A lot less than before but the pain is still very much there,” Ranboo huffed and started hobbling his way towards the wall of stone they have to climb. The black, arrow pointed tail looked like it had a tear in it that wasn’t actively bleeding but didn’t look fully healed either. The shredded up ear looked a little better but it still didn’t look good.

“We’ll get you checked out and hopefully it’s nothing serious… Are you sure you wanna climb up this thing if you’re still in pain?” Techno started climbing after Ranboo, noticing the slow pace. Sure, going up is harder than getting down but it still felt slower than they should have been going.

“Yeah, it’s fine…” Their breathing already sounded labored and they hadn’t even gotten that far up. Techno just huffed and scooped Ranboo up, putting them over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before starting to build up, “Hey! What are you doing? I told you I was fine!”

“This is faster,” Techno kept a firm hold on the kid while he towered up and over to safety. He carefully set them down and started heading back, “See? Faster. Now hurry up, we should probably inform the group of the cave over here.” Ranboo made an annoyed noise and limped after him. The two walked in silence until they broke through the trees and were in the plains again. The short hill and stream were in the distance and the sun was almost directly above them now so they had been out for a couple hours already.

“So…” Ranboo was the first to break the silence, “How did you know eating food would heal me? I honestly thought you were going crazy and I was about to die at that moment.” 

“Oh, I got a message from someone. I assume it was one of the kidnappers but I’m not sure,” Techo pulled up his chat and showed Ranboo, “I don’t know if this was the Karl guy Dream, Fundy, and Sapnap were talking to yesterday under a different name, the weird British voice, or what but I’m glad whoever it was said something. I know nothing except the basics for how to handle emergency situations and I feel like I would’ve accidentally killed you somehow,” He chuckled nervously, “Do you remember how many hearts you got down to anyway?”

“Half a heart-”

_"What-"_ Techno stopped and stared at them.

“Uh yeah,” Ranboo stopped T to and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, “I couldn’t really see my stats that well but there was sort of this flashing heart that was half blacked out right in the corner of my vision that was really clear. I assume that meant I was almost dead. Thank god you saved me though, am I right?” He laughed a little and continued on like they weren’t talking about him almost dying.

“I- what-” Techno shook his head and followed Ranboo. He really didn’t expect the kid to be that low since he had only gotten down to one and a half hearts so knowing that even the smallest wrong move probably would have killed him? That was a little terrifying in retrospect. Also, the fact they didn’t seem concerned about almost dying was a little worrying but in all fairness, they might not have fully processed that yet. He just hoped the kid was around someone else when that happened. Techno wasn’t exactly a comfort and emotions guy…

“Anyway! We’re probably gonna be spending some time together if we’re exploring buddies and I’ve already told you a lot about myself so… What about you?” Ranboo glanced back at him.

“What about me?”

“Yeah, like… what’s your favorite color, any weird fears, why you chose a tall royal pig, what you did before this… Just general stuff.

“Uh… I guess I like pink, I don’t necessarily have weird fears but I really don’t like being around garden gnomes. I made it look like my DnD character and I just wanted to see what the max height was- it’s seven-foot by the way- and uhhh… I can’t fully remember but I think I was some sort of robotics guy. Played a lot of video games too, had a full collection of vintage systems and even a few arcade machines. That good?”

“First off, why don’t you like garden gnomes?? Secondly, that’s weird that you can’t remember…. Unless you have memory issues too?” Ranboo looked at him a little hopeful.

“I just don’t trust them and their weird smiles and pointy hats… creepy,” Techno fake shuddered, “But my memory is mostly fine. I tend to forget small details of unimportant things but a job is pretty big and important so… I don’t know why I can’t remember though. I just remember working on some techy machinery plans and putting it together too but there’s a lot of gaps here and there. Also, I don’t have a single clue how to code so don’t rely on me for that. I vaguely remember some guys in suits and stuff too so hey, maybe I was a government researcher or something. Either that or a lame businessman.”

“Well, I hope you were part of the government because maybe that’ll get us out of here quicker,” Ranboo shrugged. They made it to the hill and Techno helped them down, across the bridge, and back up the other side. The camp wasn’t far off now, the dark boxes of the usernames could be seen and it looked like Tommy and Tubbo were on the edge waiting for the two’s arrival.

“I’m really hoping they’re waiting for Dream or Sam or someone else…”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I can see Dream’s neon green hoodie and Sam’s tallness in the center of camp so I doubt it… We also haven’t passed anyone on the way so,” Ranboo didn’t look excited to see the other two kids but he didn’t look like he was dreading it like Techno either. He just hoped they’d annoy Ranboo and leave him and his headache alone.

“The Blade and Big Guy, there you are! What the fuck happened to him?” Tommy slid off Henry’s back and circled Ranboo, “You look like you fell down a cliff. Blade, what did you do to the poor guy?”

“I’m fine Tommy, it’s really nothing,” Ranboo flicked his tails away when Tommy suddenly grabbed the arrow pointed one.

“Monster attack and he almost died. Apparently, there’s a deformed pig thing that explodes like some sort of suicide bomber. Now if you’ll excuse us, we gotta get him to Phil to make sure nothing is still wrong and I gotta talk to Sam,” Techno pulled Ranboo away from the two but unfortunately they just followed.

“Phil is busy getting stuff for Fundy and Nikki. Apparently, they ran into a monster too but it didn’t explode. They said it was a zombie and Phil is keeping them quarantined in a box just in case they turn like in the movies and stuff since they aren’t healing,” Tubbo moved forward on Henry now that Tommy got off.

“I think it’s dumb. We’re in a big ass survival game, not a horror game, so I doubt we’d turn into zombies.”

“Well, they gotta be safe. We don’t really know what this world is like or what’s in it besides some animals and monsters,” Ranboo shrugged.

“Do you know how low their stats are?” Techno asked.

“Low health and Philza has really only been giving them enough food to fill three of the little hunger bars things so if they do turn and escape somehow, they can’t run or move fast,” Tubbo wrapped his arms around the cow, hugging them lightly.

“Hm… Is Philza there with them now?”

“Nah, he’s out with Wilbur and Quackity to try and find any plants to use for medicine or something dumb like that,” Tommy looked uninterested as he pet behind Henery’s ears.

“Okay, well you two bring Ranboo to my hut and stay with him to keep him awake just in case you can get concussions in this world. I’m gonna make a visit to the prisoners,” Techno pat Ranboo on the shoulder and headed off towards the big wooden box on the outskirts of the camp. He could hear Tommy and Tubbo talking excitedly as he walked away, feeling only a little bad for leaving Ranboo behind.

The temporary prison had stairs that led to the roofless top. Techno peered over the edge and saw both of them were covered in blood, gashes, and some hefty bite marks. He had to assume you couldn’t bleed out in this world considering how much blood was smeared over the grass and the wooden walls and the fact they weren’t dead. Probably. Nikki was laying over on one side with her back to Techno but from what he could see, she had a couple bite marks on her arm and a deep cut on her right leg. Her blue overalls had plenty of dark red splotches and a couple handprints on her calves. Fundy didn’t look much better. He was sitting in the opposite corner, staring off into space while fresh blood stained the orange fur on his left cheek. He had fur tufts missing, scratches across his throat, a clip in his ear, a bite mark on his hand, and the white undershirt was spattered in a dark crimson stain

“You guys look kinda gross right now…” Fundy snapped his head up and Nikki sat up tiredly, making a quiet pained whine. 

“Oh wow, thanks for noticing. What do you want Technoblade?” Fundy rolled his eyes. If the two weren’t quite literally on the brink of death, Techno would’ve probably just left because of the annoying attitude.

“Fundy be nice…” When Nikki turned around fully, Techno noticed she had some pretty gnarly scratch marks across her face and left eye that was dripping blood down her face, “Did you need something, Techno?”

“How low are your hearts and how low are your hunger stats?” Techno pulled up his inventory.

“Um.. one and a half hearts and three hunger,” Nikki was leaning against the wall, wiping some blood away before it got in her eye.

“Two hearts, three hunger. Why?”

“Eat these until you’re full,” Techno threw down some steak in front of both of them, “You’ll feel better.”

“What?” Fundy looked up at him like he was crazy.

“Phil said we need to keep our hunger low so we aren’t a threat…” Despite her words, Niki was looking at the steak with hungry eyes.

“I know Phil is the medic guy or whatever but just trust me.”

“We’re almost dead and your solution is to go against the paramedic’s orders and stuff our faces?”

“I’m sure Phil wouldn’t mind that much…” Niki leaned forward and took the pieces thrown in her direction, beginning to chow down like she hadn’t eaten in days.

“Niki you can’t-” Fundy was about to object until he noticed the blood on her face drying up. The scratch mark across her face practically disappeared, leaving only a bit of redness in her eye. The gash on her leg slowly closed and the bites on her arms faded away, leaving red and irritated skin. Even the blood on her overalls dissolved like it did with Ranboo, “Wha… Did you find healing food or something??” Fundy picked up the steak that was given to him and looked at it with hesitance and interest.

“Nah. You just gotta have full hunger to regen apparently. Ranboo and I ran into a monster too and he got down to half a heart but now he can almost walk by himself again. I don’t know if there are permanent effects but you did almost die so you probably won’t feel a hundred percent for a bit. I don’t know though, I’m not a doctor.”

Fundy looked up at the pig in confusion before tearing into the meat hungrily. It was the same scenario of the blood dissolving and the wounds just leaving behind shorter fur, “Woah…”

“So do you guys feel all zombish or have any cravings for flesh yet?”  
Both of them shook their heads, Niki even stood up and stretched a little. Only a small pained noise was made but she didn’t look like she was dying anymore. Same with Fundy.

“Good. Then I’m taking down this wall. It’s ugly and I refuse to live near it,” Techno hopped down and broke a doorway for the two and started tearing down the rest of the wooden monstrosity.

“Techno what the hell are you-” Sam had run up to them but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Fundy and Niki suddenly fine, “How are you both…”

“Magic,” Techno looked over at Sam with a deadpan expression and continued chopping away. He was glad the wood lost the blood when it went into his inventory, both because it’s gross and because it meant there wouldn’t be weird stains on it, “Just kidding. Ranboo and I almost died to our own monster and I found out you just need to have a full hunger bar to regen health.”

“I mean- I guess that makes sense… You both feel fine?”

“Sore all over but not dying,” Fundy rolled his shoulders and winced a little.

“My left eye hurts and I can’t see much out of it and like Fundy said, sore all over, but it’s a lot better than before.”

“Huh… I’ll tell Phil when he gets back so he can check you out himself. Techno, where’s Ranboo?”

“I sent him to my hut with Tommy and Tubbo. Just send those two over there too, I’m going out again to get some supplies,” Techno finished taking down the box and dusted himself off, “Don’t bother sending anyone with me. I’m just going down and along the streambed.”

“It’d be safer if you took someone with you but I guess since it’s not far from here… Just don’t get yourself in trouble,” Sam let Fundy and Niki use him as support to make sure they didn’t fall.

Techno gave a thumbs up and walked past them towards the stream again. He was really hoping there was an animal in the water that dropped ink sacs…

~~~

“Puffy. Remind me again what’s your rank?” Bad had pulled her to the side after it was revealed she had secretly messed with vitals and messaged one of the subjects. He wasn’t speaking quietly so everyone could hear but he wasn’t yelling either.

“U-Um… Rank two Celosia sir…” Puffy was looking at Bad but she was clearly nervous.

“And what are you supposed to do?”

“Sort through and store the information on the test subjects that’s given to me…”

“And what aren’t you supposed to do?” Bad still hadn’t dropped his usual smile which honestly made this whole thing scarier.

“Interact with the subjects…”

“And?”

“Anything I’m not told…” She looked down and away. At first, everyone was trying to ignore what was happening out of respect but now they all were curious about what was going to happen. Even George was watching, mainly to see if he had to step in the middle of it.

“You clearly have a good understanding of your position here so please tell me why you thought it was okay to not only interact with the subjects without permission and give the subject an extra half heart?”

“Well, I... I just… He’s just a kid, you can’t possibly expect me not to intervene! It’s day two of the experiment and someone, let alone a teenager lose their first life? I had to do something!” The room went dead silent. Low ranks never raised their voice at a high ranker but Puffy just did. This isn’t gonna be pretty… 

“Puffy…” Bad gently lifted her chin up so she was looking him in the eyes again, “If we weren’t short a team member, I would have sent you to solitary for that. You should know you’re only here because of me…” He leaned in and whispered something that no one could hear. She covered her mouth and stepped back, looking like she wanted to cry and was about to punch Bad.

“You bast-”

“Cut it out,” George slammed his clipboard down and stood up. Everyone was looking at him now and he sighed, going over to the two, “Everyone get back to work. Bad you get back to work and we will talk later, Puffy come with me and I’ll decide your punishment.”

“George-” Bad started but was silenced by George’s glare.

“I said we’ll talk later. Just focus on the project and don’t do anything idiotic. What is done is done and I don’t think our superiors will be very happy if you try to fix it with something major,” He looked out over the rows of people still watching, “I said get back to work. If I come back and you all still aren’t doing your jobs, we’ll have issues.

“Yes sir,” Everyone but Bad and Puffy spoke in unison and refocused on their tasks Bad gave the two an angry look and went back to his desk. George pulled Puffy out of the room and into the long metallic hallway, the door’s multiple locks closing behind them. He gave the camera one look and started heading down the hall towards the door, pulling Puffy along by her arm.

“I’m so sorry! I really didn’t mean to yell, I just- He was going to lose his first life and I heard about the first round of tests after the incident and I couldn’t let either of them go through that so early- Please don’t-” Puffy was in a panic but George cut her off.

“Hey, it’s okay. I understand why you did it but we have a job to do. We can’t let our personal opinions get in the way of our goal, you knew that when you signed the contract-”

“I didn’t sign the contract to do something like this!” She pulled her arm away from George and stopped walking.

George sighed. He looked around the empty hall and down at the black door at the end of the hall. He would’ve preferred to talk somewhere more private but it didn’t look like she was willing to go much of anywhere so he moved closer and whispered, “Listen Puffy, I understand your stress about this especially because of your sister’s condition…” She looked away, “But we don’t have any other choice. We have to do this, you understand that right?” She hesitated before nodding, “Okay then I need you to just let things happen. You can’t let your emotions control you in that room. We’re supposed to have little to no interaction with them, but hell I’ve broken that rule a few times, however, that can’t be the case anymore. We are there to do our job and that’s it. Got it?”

“Understood…”

“Good,” George flipped his glasses up, squinting at the bright fluorescent lights. His multi-colored eyes were sensitive to light but he wanted to look Puffy in the eyes for his next promise, “I’m gonna negotiate some things to make your punishment less severe and I’m gonna make sure your sister is still going to be taken care of so don’t worry about that. I’ll try to just make it a temporary demotion to Diascia rank but I can’t promise you won’t have to do other tasks. Is that fine?”

Puffy nodded and pulled George into a tight hug, “Thank you so much. You’re a literal lifesaver.”

George chuckled and hugged her back, “Don’t worry about it. You’re my friend and a valuable member of the team. I’d never let something bad happen to you or your family,” He pulled back after a moment, “I gotta get back but feel free to take a break if you need it. Just try to be back within an hour.”

Puffy smiled, “Thank you again. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“Just consider it a really early birthday gift,” She huffed in amusement and George smiled softly at her, “Just take it easy for a bit. I’ll see you in an hour?” He started walking backwards towards their testing room again, not fully trusting Bad right now.

“Got it, boss. Good luck with that talk!” She waved and headed for the black door at the end of the hall, probably going to the dorms or cafeteria.

He watched her leave and when the doors closed behind her, he sighed and ran his hands over his face tiredly, “Fuck me…” He took a deep breath, slipped his glasses back on, and headed into the room again. Bad hadn’t done anything from what he could see but they did keep glancing back at him every so often. That’ll be a fun conversation later…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry this took so long to get out but hopefully I'll be able to update faster when things calm down. Please consider giving kudos and maybe subscribing/bookmarking? It'd mean a lot
> 
> Have a nice day! <3


End file.
